Carl G. Drexler, PhDhttps://cgdrexler.wordpress.com
Conflict and Historical Archaeology in the Old Southwest
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1 http://wordpress.com/https://s0.wp.com/i/buttonw-com.pngCarl G. Drexler, PhDhttps://cgdrexler.wordpress.com
The Red Scare (?) at the Picric Acid Plant, 1918https://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2018/05/27/the-red-scare-at-the-picric-acid-plant-1918/
https://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2018/05/27/the-red-scare-at-the-picric-acid-plant-1918/#respondMon, 28 May 2018 02:09:25 +0000http://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/?p=871Continue reading The Red Scare (?) at the Picric Acid Plant, 1918]]>So, I’ve done some historical work on the Little Rock Picric Acid Plant. This was a major munitions factory that stood where the Interstate 440 and Bankhead Drive now meet. During World War I, it made a high explosive called picric acid (bet you didn’t guess that), which was used in American shells sent to Europe.

Some months back, I found a listing in the National Archives online catalogs for two records groups relating to the facility. This was a potential boon, since I’ve been using primarily newspaper accounts up to this point. I requested copies, and hoped that they contained at least some photographs or drawing of the facility, which I haven’t found to date. I was, frankly, surprised by what popped up.

The documents are actually from the office of the Director of Military Intelligence, Brigadier General Marlborough Churchill. They allege that the International Workers of the World were active and “influential” around Little Rock, and may be implicated in two deaths at the Little Rock Picric Acid Plant.

Whoa. That’s an entirely different aspect of the plant than has popped up in the papers…

We’ve known from newspaper accounts that a worker died during construction. This man, W.E. Woodard of Faulkner County, apparently fell to his death from the roof of one of the buildings. The NARA documents give more of the circumstances about the death. Apparently, on the night of June 3, 1918, about 10:35, Woodard and some others were working on one of the buildings when a channel iron slipped its guide rope and struck Woodard in the head, knocking him from the building. He fell 35 feet and landed on an I-beam, breaking both legs and causing massive internal injuries. One hour later (why did they wait an hour?), someone called for emergency services, but Woodard passed away soon thereafter.

Apparently, one of the foremen thought that this was no accident. He reported it to Churchill’s office, believing that International Workers of the World saboteurs had infiltrated the plant and were causing accidents. Woodard’s death was one, but apparently someone shut off the water supply to the fire extinguishers at around the same time. This foreman blamed the IWW.

Ultimately, the Military Intelligence officers sent to investigate decided that both incidents were accidental, not sabotage. Still, the hasty response to purported infiltration bespeaks the importance of military production at the time and the fear of anti-war IWW agitation present in Arkansas.

Carl Drexler
Magnolia, Arkansas

]]>https://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2018/05/27/the-red-scare-at-the-picric-acid-plant-1918/feed/0cgdrexlerCheerfully Over the Worldhttps://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2017/08/12/cheerfully-over-the-world/
https://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2017/08/12/cheerfully-over-the-world/#respondSun, 13 Aug 2017 03:04:01 +0000http://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/?p=866Continue reading Cheerfully Over the World]]>Some Quakers, including myself, find themselves living far from other Friends (we’re called “the Religious Society of Friends,” hence the capitalization). It can be a little lonely, and in 2000, the Friends World Committee for Consultation put out a book titled Cheerfully Over the World: A Handbook for Isolated Friends. It is out of print, and a request for a copy from FWCC indicated that they didn’t have any on hand, but provided a link to a Russian site that carried the text. The link does not appear to work anymore, but I did manage to grab the text before it went away. I am posting it here, so long as no one objects.
]]>https://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2017/08/12/cheerfully-over-the-world/feed/0cgdrexlerPublic Archeology in Rural Arkansashttps://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2017/06/19/pub-arch-in-rural-ark/
https://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2017/06/19/pub-arch-in-rural-ark/#respondTue, 20 Jun 2017 00:40:33 +0000http://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/?p=862Continue reading Public Archeology in Rural Arkansas]]>Rurality has been popping up in a few different places in my life recently. I have been talking with a colleague about building some course materials on rural anthropology and sociology, my

recently-submitted platform for the upcoming Society for Historical Archaeology’s Board of Directors elections emphasized outreach with rural communities, and I live in and work in south Arkansas… look out the window… it’s rural.

But, if I am going to talk about working in rural areas, I wanted to know how rural territory is, and, because I am curious, how rural my station territory is in comparison with the other stations in the Arkansas Archeological Survey system. Because I am me, I threw some GIS at it.

I downloaded a shapefile of urban areas from the U.S. Census Bureau, who define such things, and did some simple statistics in ArcMap.

Station

Total Area (sq mi)

Urban Area (sq mi)

Percent Urban Area

ASU

11,503

182

1.6%

HSU

6,423

354

5.5%

SAU

7,348

75

1.0%

UAF

8,238

311

3.8%

UAM

4,967

36

0.7%

UAPB

5,957

581

9.8%

WRI

7,631

95

1.2%

So, we’re the fourth largest territory, but the second most rural behind UAM. Of course, this is just land mass, which was the easiest to calculate with the given files at hand. I pulled populations for the SAU territory, and we’re 58% rural, well above the 42% that is the state average and 19.3% that is the national average. I don’t have specifics for the rest of the state, as that was going to be a bigger data mining operation.

Why does this matter? Comparing the SAU territory to others is pretty much a just-so story, but in the larger scope, all of our stations work with primarily rural territories in a state that has a rural population twice the national average. That creates a different working context than our colleagues on the coasts (East, West, and Gulf). Somewhere, Robert Earl Keen’s “Out Here in the Middle” is playing in the background…

]]>https://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2017/06/19/pub-arch-in-rural-ark/feed/0cgdrexlerSummer research abroad… Well, at least in a different corner of Arkansashttps://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2017/06/11/summer-research-abroad-well-at-least-in-a-different-corner-of-arkansas/
https://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2017/06/11/summer-research-abroad-well-at-least-in-a-different-corner-of-arkansas/#commentsSun, 11 Jun 2017 21:39:26 +0000http://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/?p=857Continue reading Summer research abroad… Well, at least in a different corner of Arkansas]]>It’s mid-June, and my summer’s research and field schedule is in full swing. I’m on the road this month, whiling away the hours in a different corner of Arkansas than my usual.

I am currently assisting my old boss and current colleague at the UAF Station, Dr. Jamie Brandon, with the 2017 University of Arkansas Field School at Pea Ridge National Military Park, near Pea Ridge, Arkansas. We are working with 10 students from the UofA, as well as Jerry Hilliard, Jared Pebworth, and Lydia Rees to figure out the exact footprint, size, orientation, and antiquity of the village of Leetown, which figured prominently in the battle (probably the most important one fought west of the Mississippi River).

As we are operating out of Fayetteville, I am taking time on weekends to delve into the prodigious stacks at the University of Arkansas’s Mullins Library to advance some writing projects. I owe the Encyclopedia of Arkansas Online and the Pulaski County Historical Review each an article on the Little Rock Picric Acid Plant (LRPAP). The LRPAP was a munitions factory that, during World War I, produced a high explosive for the U.S. military. It’s also feeding into a longer work on World War I production that will be presented at the Old Statehouse Museum this fall. On top of all that, I have been doing some additional groundwork for expanding out a recent SHA paper into a book chapter for an edited volume on place and historical archaeology in the West, focusing on the construction of place through archaeology and history associated with the Camden Expedition of 1864. That’s got an October due date, though, so it’s not feeling the front-burner flames as keenly as the other things.

Being alone in the evenings is also great for productivity, and I’ve finished two books that I have wanted to polish off for some time. Ian Hope’s A Scientific Way of War: Antebellum Military Science, West Point, and the Origins of American Military Thought and Gary Pinkerton’s Trammel’s Trace: The First Road to Texas from the North, which I am reviewing for the Journal of Southern History (the other [for myself and other historical archaeologists] SHA). There’s some work for the Society for Historical Archaeology (the real [for myself and other historical archaeologists] SHA) that needs doing, too.

Stay out of academia, kids, or else this is what your “holidays” will start to look like…

]]>https://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2017/06/11/summer-research-abroad-well-at-least-in-a-different-corner-of-arkansas/feed/2cgdrexlerNew Horizons and Old Hauntshttps://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2017/03/20/new-horizons-and-old-haunts/
https://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2017/03/20/new-horizons-and-old-haunts/#respondMon, 20 Mar 2017 21:45:53 +0000http://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/?p=851Continue reading New Horizons and Old Haunts]]>It’s been some time since I put a post up here. It’s been a busy time, factoring in the demands of classes and research. I guess it beats being bored (though boredom looks kind of nice from time to time). We’ve had some new things going on around the Station and Southwest Arkansas, and I’m spending some times going back to my historical archaeological roots, as well.

First, the new things. At this past Caddo Conference, held in Natchitoches, Louisiana, I and Fiona Taylor (the new research assistant in the Station) gave our first paper on Caddo archaeology. We have been doing some work on the Holman Springs site (3SV29) and the Society Digs that were held there back in the 1980s. It is a start towards moving that project closer to completion. In addition to giving a paper on it (which was mostly background to the project), we have started to do rough sorts and inventories of the boxes of material. This is both a needed step towards finer analyses, and it is the genesis of an inventory system that will be used for all of the 4,000+ boxes of artifacts in the Station collections area. That bit will take years to implement, but it is massively satisfying to have that in progress.

Stepping back to an earlier time, I am now up in Fayetteville, assisting the UAF Station (Dr. Jamie Brandon) and the Computer Services Program (Dr. Jamie Lockhart) with some remote sensing and mapping at Pea Ridge National Military Park as part of a CESU research program concluded with the park (Superintendent Kevin Eads) and the NPS’s Midwest Archeological Center (Dr. Steve DeVore). We are working on the site of the village of Leetown, which factored significantly into the battle, and was explored back in the 1960s by Rex Wilson. This is all gearing up towards the UofA Field School that will be held there this summer.

Other things continue apace. We did a booth at the Jonquil Festival in Historic Washington last weekend, and have the Art Walk in El Dorado on Saturday. There are lots of cemetery projects popping up, which will keep the Station occupied for a good chunk of the coming months, as well.

]]>https://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2017/03/20/new-horizons-and-old-haunts/feed/0cgdrexlerNew things in archaeology and historic ordancehttps://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2016/12/31/new-things-in-archaeology-and-historic-ordance/
https://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2016/12/31/new-things-in-archaeology-and-historic-ordance/#respondSat, 31 Dec 2016 20:07:24 +0000http://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2016/12/31/new-things-in-archaeology-and-historic-ordance/Continue reading New things in archaeology and historic ordance]]>So, the Society for Historical Archaeology meetings are next week in Fort Worth. One of the workshops this year is hosted by Tom Gersbeck, of the Center for Improvised Explosives at Oklahoma State University, and offers some training in safety and identification of unexploded ordnance in archeological contexts.

This morning, the Charleston Post and Courier put out this article, detailing some concerns about the handling of cannonballs found after a recent hurricane. I get quoted in it, and it came out well. Give it a look, and if you want to chat at the SHAs, come find me.

]]>https://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2016/12/31/new-things-in-archaeology-and-historic-ordance/feed/0cgdrexlerDisposessing Duwali on Lost Prairiehttps://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2016/10/28/disposessing-duwali-on-lost-prairie/
https://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2016/10/28/disposessing-duwali-on-lost-prairie/#respondFri, 28 Oct 2016 17:22:32 +0000http://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/?p=848Continue reading Disposessing Duwali on Lost Prairie]]>My doctoral dissertation focused on Dooley’s Ferry, a crossing on the Red River that was part of the mid-19th century landscape of cotton production in southwest Arkansas. Dooley’s Ferry, as a community of some coherence, is very much a 1840s-1890s phenomenon. It was not, however, the first kind of community in its location, nor was it the last. The Caddo maintained a presence there many centuries ago, and one of the earliest communities in the American period was a group of immigrant Cherokees, who arrived in 1819.

Though I never really focused on it in my doctoral research, as I had other priorities, the presence of a Cherokee community was fascinating, though it was short-lived. We know, from several historical sources (e.g. Sabo 1992) that the Cherokee settlement on the Red River, in an area known as “Lost Prairie,” only lasted one winter, and was violently broken up by neighboring whites in 1820. Claude McCrocklin, an avocational archeologist who used to work in the Red River Valley, believed he found some of the footprint of the settlement in the 1990s (McCrocklin 1990). Still, we do not have a good handle on what, outside of racist, exclusionist concepts of civilization, progress, and property rights common to the early 19th century, drove the events that forced the Cherokees away.

I spent a little time researching it this morning, looking through old Arkansas Gazette stories. What follows is far from the last word on the subject, and is limited by working with the period white accounts, but it does illuminate the period a bit.

Background: The Bowl on the Red River

Some of the first stages of Removal pushed tribes like the Cherokee out of Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, and into the Arkansas Territory. The first land allotted the Cherokee was up on the Arkansas River Valley, in the vicinity of modern-day Dardanelle. Within a few short years, however, the U.S. government sought new treaties that would change those land allocations.

The Treaty of 1817 called for the Cherokees to give up land south of the Arkansas River, a condition that many went along with. Many, but not all. Duwali, also known as “The Bowl,” “Chief Bowles,” or “John Bowles,” objected, as he and his closest associates had established homes along the Petit Jean River, south of the Arkansas. Rather than move north, putting them in close contact with tribal members with whom they had significant political differences, Duwali’s followers instead relocated to the Red River, establishing a small community along what would become the Miller County side of Dooley’s Ferry, an area known as “Lost Prairie.”

The area around Lost Prairie was thinly-settled by Americans in 1819. The first stages of migration from the eastern seaboard, which would bring both European and enslaved African Americans to the Red River Valley, was just beginning. A few farms and plantations were in operation, and these mostly centered along rivers, which were the main arteries of commerce and communication with the wider world (Goodspeed 1890).

There were not many white residents, somewhere around 2,250 for all of southwest Arkansas. These were people who were both trying to make a new home for themselves and trying to keep their families safe. For them, part of those processes involved establishing law and order over growing Southern communities. This was a social system where whites were in power, blacks were enslaved, and Indians had no real place. Indians posed a particular problem within this worldview, as they were “a fierce and savage enemy” (Arkansas Gazette, 7 Oct 1820) who should be “removed to the lands allotted to them in [Oklahoma]” (Arkansas Gazette 15 July 1820) and were unlikely to do so amicably, as their “resentment has already been raised to the highest pitch, and who… calculates on glutting his vengeance… for unjuries [sic] which he has sustained in his native country” (Arkansas Gazette 7 Oct 1820).

We see from these period accounts that there was no concept of making a place for Indian communities within white-dominated society, and that Indians were fierce, merciless, and already-provoked by injustices done to them back east. It is an image of angry, violent Indians, not of Indians as families, communities, or cultures. It is in this template that Duwali’s followers were trying to find a place.

The Red River Valley, 1820

They did not find a hospitable set of neighbors. A letter to Governor James Miller noted the event by calling it “to the great annoyance of the inhabitants of Hempstead county” (Arkansas Gazette, 15 Jul 1820). Soon, allegations of horse-stealing and “other depredations” were being lodged against the Cherokees and some remaining Caddos, referred to as “these faithless savages” (Arkansas Gazette, 26 Feb 1820).

Fanning the flames of anti-Indian outrage, the Arkansas Gazette, in February 1820, printed a laundry list of actions committed by Indians against white settlers, and includes a reference to an 1819 incident in which a party of 10-12 Caddos stole thirteen horses from Pecan Point on the Red River. They were pursued by Captain Nathaniel Robbins and a small party of whites, but when the Caddos stood to give a fight, Robbins and his men decided they did not have the numbers to win, so returned home (Arkansas Gazette, 26 Feb 1820). The other incidents listed in the long enumeration printed by the Gazette could have done little more than offer a laundry list of grievances meant to heighten anti-Native sentiment.

That sentiment would have been added to by incidents in May of the following year. On the 22nd, another raid on Pecan Point resulted in another theft of horses. Again, Captain Robbins and a small party set out after the robbers, pursuing them 100 miles before overtaking them. Apparently, they were able to capture one Cherokee, whose name they record as “Hog in a Pen,” who identified himself as one of Duwali’s followers. Robbins’ party set off towards home with Hog in a Pen, but were waylaid by a party of 40 Cherokees and Caddos, who set Hog in a Pen free “by force of arms” (Arkansas Gazette, 15 Jul 1820).

The Expulsion(?)

The following month, the Gazette ran a copy of a letter to Governor Miller stating that the Cherokees on Red River reported “a difference” that took place between them and local whites, which resulted in the death of one of their number and that “the balance, or nearly so, are in confinement” (Arkansas Gazette, 18 Jun 1820). It is unclear from context what the difference was, though it would not be surprising if some kind of retribution for the events of the preceding month took place, and whether the “confinement” mentioned was indication that the Lost Prairie Cherokee community was rounded up in preparation for expulsion from the territory.

Conclusion

So, this is a brief retelling, but it adds some detail to an under-studied event. Also, I find it fascinating that there are clear indications of Caddo-Cherokee collaboration during this period, a subject to be further investigated. The Red River Valley during what Goodspeed (1890) refers to as the “Squatter Period” (1804-1840) definitely deserves a lot more research.

]]>https://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2016/10/28/disposessing-duwali-on-lost-prairie/feed/0cgdrexlerAHA 2017: Laboring on the Plains of Factoriahttps://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2016/10/11/aha-2017-laboring-on-the-plains-of-flatonia/
https://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2016/10/11/aha-2017-laboring-on-the-plains-of-flatonia/#commentsTue, 11 Oct 2016 15:41:57 +0000http://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/?p=846Continue reading AHA 2017: Laboring on the Plains of Factoria]]>The Arkansas Historical Association meetings in 2017 will be way up in Pocahontas. I’m going, in part because I’m on the AHA’s Board of Trustees, plus they’re a fun group to be around, and as a historical archaeologist, I work closely with both historians of Arkansas and the documentary record. The call for papers is out, and the deadline is this week, so this morning, I sent off my title and abstract. They are:

Laboring on the Plains of Factoria: War, Work, Migration, and Industry at the Little Rock Picric Acid Plant during World War I

The Great War brought great changes to many parts of Arkansas and, individually, to many Arkansans’ lives. One great change to the face of Little Rock was the construction in 1918 of a plant for the making of picric acid, a chemical used in munitions. Though a short-lived facility, the Little Rock Picric Acid created a series of conflicts and collaborations between laborers, on the one hand, and plant administrators, local authorities, and federal officials, on the other. This paper delves into those interactions, and shows how the development of war industries in central Arkansas placed demands on the state and people that both united and divided, and built connections between Arkansas and the wider, modern world of the 1910s.

The conference theme is “Great War, Great Changes,” so a World War I-themed paper was most apt. I’ve been doing some work on the Picric Acid Plant, and this seemed like the most interesting writing project at hand. It’s got everything from work stoppages and strikes to arrests for violation of the Sedition Act to importation of Puerto Rican laborers and on and on and on.

Perhaps at some archeological conference I’ll do a paper on the actual, physical location of the plant, itself (now thoroughly developed over).

]]>https://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2016/10/11/aha-2017-laboring-on-the-plains-of-flatonia/feed/1cgdrexlerThe Folly Island Cannonballs and the Value of Contexthttps://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2016/10/10/the-folly-island-cannonballs-and-the-value-of-context/
https://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2016/10/10/the-folly-island-cannonballs-and-the-value-of-context/#respondTue, 11 Oct 2016 02:00:56 +0000http://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/?p=844Continue reading The Folly Island Cannonballs and the Value of Context]]>Hurricane Matthew wended its way up the Eastern Seaboard this week, wreaking havoc and taking lives. One of the few, well, not exactly happy, but perhaps “huh” stories to come out of the storm’s aftermath is the discovery of a number of cannonballs on the beach at Folly Island, South Carolina, south of Charleston.

I’m absolutely not going to second-guess the decisions made to destroy or curate the items, as it seems that some were exploded in place while others were carried back to an unspecified U.S. Navy facility for destruction. Bomb squads do what they need and are trained to do.

What I do fine somewhat troubling is the news coverage and the lack of context for what Folly Island meant during the war, and why exactly Civil War cannonballs would be showing up there. Those that gave any context noted only that “The first shots of the Civil War were fired at nearby Fort Sumter in 1861.” The only source to really do better was Hudson Hongo, writing for Gizmodo, who offered that “During the Civil War, Folly Island served as a key staging area for Union troops attacking nearby Fort Morris. Since then, remnants of the occupation have periodically been discovered in the area, including a black regimental cemetery found during a construction project in 1987 and military artifacts uncovered by Hurricane Hugo in 1989.”

Folly Island was a major piece of the U.S. Army’s attempt to take Charleston from the seaward side, coming overland from the mouth of the Stono River and working through the coastal swamps toward the city. This is the area where Fort Wagner, on adjacent Morris Island, stood (yes, THAT Fort Wagner, from the movie Glory). The cannonballs that washed out of the sand yesterday were a part of a major, complex, combined-arms effort by the U.S. military, and their location and recovery should not be taken as some surprising, improbable discovery. Our “iron harvest” pales in comparison to what France and the Low Countries deal with from World War I, but it is, nonetheless, an ongoing hazardous legacy of conflict.

Total credit to Mr. Hongo for tracking down the previous work on Folly Island (you can download the text of the report here). That mentioned “black regimental cemetery” was an excavation project by James Legg and Steven Smith that recovered the remains of 19 U.S. soldiers from the 55th Massachusetts Infantry, 2nd U.S. Colored Infantry (organized in the District of Columbia), and 1st North Carolina Colored Infantry regiments. Their presence is more than just a component of the U.S. Army’s contingent in the area. They were laying the groundwork for the 14th and 15th Amendments and the first round of African-American voting rights. The campaign for Charleston, involving black and white regiments, was about more than military strategy, and that should not be lost in the shifting sands of the beaches of Folly Island. Cannonballs are interesting, but the people that put them there, the movements and campaigns (in multiple senses) that they were engaged in, and their place in our heritage is what really matters. That’s the context. Context matters. Ask any archeologist.

]]>https://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2016/10/10/the-folly-island-cannonballs-and-the-value-of-context/feed/0cgdrexlerOn Trigger Warnings and Conflict Archaeologyhttps://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2016/09/28/on-trigger-warnings-and-conflict-archaeology/
https://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/2016/09/28/on-trigger-warnings-and-conflict-archaeology/#commentsThu, 29 Sep 2016 04:16:03 +0000http://cgdrexler.wordpress.com/?p=836Continue reading On Trigger Warnings and Conflict Archaeology]]>My Twitter feed is blowing up with stories trolling University College-London students who are taking Gabe Moshenka’s modern conflict archaeology class. Apparently, consistent with UCL policy, students were told if they were feeling overwhelmed by the material, they could step out of class without penalty. Much of the backlash has been laced with derision assuming that students are basically coddled softies that can’t cope with reading books and journal articles. Too whatever extent that caricature reflects reality… okay. But, here’s the thing. People seem to be assuming that all students are of the same demographic with similarly sheltered upbringings.

And that’s where I think they lost some perspective.

See, we’ve got these wars going on, which means we have a new generation of veterans coming back and transitioning to civilian life. Some of them are going to college, and some of them are going to college. If you’re a veteran in a class on modern conflict studies, and the course material is dealing with subject matter that brings out something you’re still dealing with from Iraq or Afghanistan (or the various other conflicts we’re embroiled in that don’t rise to the level of a declared war), then I would much prefer you be able to step out without penalty than feel like you have to sit there and have your situation get worse.

Also, if your childhood involved enduring genocide or political terror in Bosnia, Rwanda, Sudan, or You-Name-It-Because-It-Happens-Too-Much-These-Days, and the class starts talking about excavating mass graves of people you knew as a child, please God step out if you need to. The people who seem to be gleefully castigating students who might need to step out from class assume that no one’s life has actually involved the modern conflict that these classes focus on.

Check. that. privilege.

EDIT: Alix at The People’s Republic of Mortimer took more time with this, thinking along the same lines. Give her a read.